Silicon Beach

What's the future of L.A.'s economy? That's a question that should be at the center of this year's mayoral campaign. Key to that discussion should be recognition that Los Angeles, despite all its economic problems, is an increasingly prominent home to the next generation of technology companies that will drive the digital revolution in the 21st century. Los Angeles' tech awakening is unfolding in a slice of territory - dubbed "Silicon Beach," which initially referred to Venice and Santa Monica and then expanded to Hollywood and downtown - where established giants such as Google and Apple have opened offices and where some 500 newcomer ventures have taken root.

If you love to spend your beach time on top of the water rather than in it, you can thank Hobie for helping you do it. Hobie Alter, the “Henry Ford of surfing,” who revolutionized surfing and put his name on whole lines of surfboards and catamarans, died at age 80 , leaving as his legacy a flotilla of floating devices, beginning with the first lighter-than-wood polyurethane foam surfboard crafted more than 50 years ago. But Alter was...

The Los Angeles technology scene isn't getting the respect it deserves, a situation that the city is looking to change, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said Wednesday. At an event in West L.A., Villaraigosa said that despite a boom in new start-ups, so-called Silicon Beach still suffers from perception issues and funding problems that have hindered it from reaching its potential as a major tech hub. “We're known as the entertainment capital in the world, but we're not known for Silicon Beach, and that needs to change,” he told a crowd of reporters and tech enthusiasts.

Tylt Lab, a new Santa Monica venture capital firm, has raised $20 million for early-stage start-ups in Silicon Beach. The fund will support local entrepreneurs through seed to series A investments, Tylt said, estimating that this year it will be making 12 to 15 investments ranging from $50,000 to $2 million. The company said it focuses on "businesses disruptive to their industries," which include lifestyle products, mobile platforms and services, home automation, software-oriented transactions, consumer goods, clean tech, e- healthcare and entertainment.

Given the stream of Southern California entertainment industry executives working for Yahoo, the Internet company might have been tempted to consider lifting the fabled Hollywood sign from its hillside perch and dropping it down in Sunnyvale, its Silicon Valley home. In a bit of serendipity, the online pioneer instead has decided to base its media group in Santa Monica -- appropriately enough, in the office complex formerly known as MGM Plaza.

December 11, 2011 | By Andrea Chang and David Sarno, Los Angeles Times

The Los Angeles tech scene has buzz, glitzy backers and even a catchy nickname: Silicon Beach. Tech boosters are stumping for a Silicon Valley contender down south, and conference halls and bars are brimming with entrepreneurs looking to join a growing community that includes a huge new Google campus in Venice and a wave of Internet start-ups. "We've been investing in this area since 1999, and we've never seen a level of activity higher than it is today," said venture capitalist Nate Redmond of Rustic Canyon Partners in Santa Monica.

Silicon Beach is spreading to Venice. The quirky beach-side community drew hundreds of attendees to a packed town hall meeting dubbed The Emergence of Silicon Beach on Thursday to discuss the burgeoning Westside tech scene and how to attract firms and talent to the area. Executives from Google, local start-ups Viddy and Mogreet, and accelerator Amplify were on hand for a panel moderated by Los Angeles City Councilman Bill Rosendahl, who repeatedly told audience members that they were witnessing a “Venicessance.” Nearly two dozen tech companies set up booths to tout their products and ideas to about 400 attendees.

Historic Old Pasadena, a restored section of the city's downtown bustling with shops and restaurants, is getting more high-tech. Three older buildings at a busy intersection on Raymond Avenue will be transformed into a hub for budding technology firms in a real estate development backed by a prominent Silicon Valley entrepreneur and investor. David Sacks, who was instrumental in the launch of two $1-billion Internet companies, has joined Los Angeles developer Rising Realty Partners in a project to turn three century-old buildings into offices for tech firms.

Pingpong tables, employees in sandals, software code scrawled on the walls, a bounce house in the lobby. No, it's not a Silicon Valley tech company. Rather, it's a scene from one of several new tech-focused office buildings in Southern California where dozens of start-ups are setting up shop and sharing the work space. In a unique feature of the region's Silicon Beach, walls in more buildings are being knocked down to create open spaces where start-ups cohabit and employees mingle with one another, attend seminars and occasionally party.

Maybe the attraction is Silicon Beach, the swath of Los Angeles that is home to so many tech start-ups. Or maybe it's just the beach. Either way, Northern California technology titans and wannabes increasingly are sinking money into trophy homes from the Hollywood Hills to the beach in a kind of Silicon Valley south. Making tsunami-like waves so far this year are three Westside transactions: •Billionaire venture capitalist and hedge fund manager Peter Thiel cherry-picked a house in the Hollywood Hills this spring for $11.5 million.

Ask anyone about L.A. tech these days and they'll almost certainly point to Santa Monica and Venice, where hundreds of start-ups have emerged in the last few years. So-called Silicon Beach is home to Snapchat, sizable Google and Microsoft offices, and a growing number of venture capital firms and co-working spaces. Almost every night, tech entrepreneurs flock to networking happy hours and parties. Potential investors flock to demo days that showcase the latest start-ups. When BlackBerry Chief Executive John Chen and Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt came to town last week, it was for a glitzy tech confab in Santa Monica.

Historic Old Pasadena, a restored section of the city's downtown bustling with shops and restaurants, is getting more high-tech. Three older buildings at a busy intersection on Raymond Avenue will be transformed into a hub for budding technology firms in a real estate development backed by a prominent Silicon Valley entrepreneur and investor. David Sacks, who was instrumental in the launch of two $1-billion Internet companies, has joined Los Angeles developer Rising Realty Partners in a project to turn three century-old buildings into offices for tech firms.

In Venice, 25-year-old Snapchat co-founder Bobby Murphy has bought a new two-bedroom house for $2.1 million, or nearly double the median price of homes in the neighborhood. A few blocks away, a three-bedroom town house with a rooftop sun deck was just rented for $7,000 a month - a year ago, an identical unit was renting for $5,900. "Totally Silicon Beach living," the ad on Craigslist proclaimed. And farther south in Marina del Rey, hundreds of apartments were recently completed and aimed at drawing the tech crowd, with high-speed Internet in every unit, free Wi-Fi in common areas and an online application process.

Online bingo game manager Adam Carpenter wants a dog, and his apartment landlord is ready to roll out the red carpet for the prospective pooch. In Marina del Rey and upscale neighborhoods nearby, the drive is on to attract sophisticated tenants like Carpenter who work in the technology, media and entertainment businesses flourishing on the Westside. Dog runs, smoke-free apartments, fire pits, Wi-Fi, fully equipped gyms and pools are just a few of the amenities tailored for the creative set. A new addition is a splashy complex of 12 buildings with 544 apartments at the marina.

Los Angeles may not have the biggest collection of technology businesses in the country, but it does have some of the coolest ones and they are expanding quickly. The region's deeply rooted entertainment industry is wielding new technology to create computer games, dramas for online video services such as Netflix Inc., wacky monologues for YouTube and amusing mobile phone applications people use to pass the time. "We have the fun, sexy tech," said real estate broker Hayley Blockley, who helps negotiate leases with entertainment companies and other creative firms.

During his inaugural speech Sunday, Eric Garcetti pledged to give Silicon Valley a “run for their bitcoin.” It was a joke about the decentralized virtual currency created in 2009, but nobody laughed. Garcetti's reference might have fallen flat, but that doesn't mean it didn't play an important role in a speech intended to introduce the 42nd mayor's vision for government and governing. For a mayor bent on returning “back to basics,” Garcetti brings a distinctly future-oriented approach.

Ask anyone about L.A. tech these days and they'll almost certainly point to Santa Monica and Venice, where hundreds of start-ups have emerged in the last few years. So-called Silicon Beach is home to Snapchat, sizable Google and Microsoft offices, and a growing number of venture capital firms and co-working spaces. Almost every night, tech entrepreneurs flock to networking happy hours and parties. Potential investors flock to demo days that showcase the latest start-ups. When BlackBerry Chief Executive John Chen and Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt came to town last week, it was for a glitzy tech confab in Santa Monica.

Success as a computer software entrepreneur has come in a hurry to Charles Jackson. As recently as 1982, Jackson was in his sixth year of graduate school and was, in the eyes of his family, a "professional student." Today, Jackson's company, Silicon Beach Software, publishes two of the hottest-selling software programs available for Apple Computer's Macintosh computers.

Hundreds of start-up tech developers and others converged in Santa Monica this week for Silicon Beach Fest, seeking to raise money from investors, build industry contacts and gain exposure for their companies. The four-day tech and entertainment festival, which runs through Saturday, is intended to promote the fast-growing entrepreneurial community in the greater Los Angeles area. Local tech leaders have cheered the event, now in its second year. It includes start-up showcases, parties and panels on topics including app creation and development, crowd-funding, mobile advertising and legal and public relations help for start-ups.

Inside a cavernous warehouse downtown, crumbling brick walls, exposed wiring and a gaping concrete pit suggest anything but the future of clean technology. A group of Los Angeles nonprofits, utilities and universities aims to change that when work begins this week on what's slated to become a hub of collaboration and green innovation in the city's arts district. Headed by Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator, the La Kretz Innovation Campus will take up 3.2 acres of the so-called Cleantech Corridor, a four-mile swath along the Los Angeles River that is intended to house environmentally conscious manufacturers and other businesses.